[vortex] Problems detecting 100Mbps with 3c59x (Vortex)

[CJ Kucera]

On Mon, Dec 30, 2002 at 05:12:20PM -0500, Donald Becker wrote:
> Full duplex is only correct when it is auto-negotiated.

Aaah.  Works for me!

> > Heh.  Yeah, I figured they'd probably not be great, but they have the
> > distinct advantage of being the cards I happen to already own.  :)
> > Still, the 100Mbps mode on the 3c595 should do better than the 10Mbps,
> > right?  Or is the difference between the two on the 3c595 negligible?
> 
> The problem is that the 3c590 series has a single-region bus master
> capability.  CPU must do a substantial amount of the work transferring
> packets: not as much as a NE2000 clone, but significantly more than with
> more modern designs.  And for the $5-$10 that a new low-end Ethernet NIC
> will cost, the 3c590 series should be relagated to stand-by use only.

Hm, yeah.  Well, they'll have to do until I can find some time to go
out and snag some new ones then...  Or until I can make my way over
to pricewatch, I suppose.  At any rate, I'll keep it in mind; thanks.

> A long time ago the driver tried to offer 100baseTx link beat for a few
> seconds when started.
> But this jams most 10baseT repeaters.. a very bad thing.

Heh, I'll say.

> Autonegotiation is really a Very Good Thing.  It is a _requirement_ for
> a plug-and-play networking.
> 
>   http://scyld.com/expert/NWay.html

Thanks for the link...

In other news, I seem to have shoehorned the current 3c59x driver into
compiling directly into the kernel.  It actually wasn't that hard (the
Makefile changes were trivial); basically all I had to do was remove
some of the "#ifdef MODULE" and a couple of references to
"linux/modversions.h", which doesn't exist when your kernel isn't using
modules.  Oh, and calls to "module_init" and "module_exit" towards
the end.

If anyone's interested, I've put up the patches at:
  http://apocalyptech.com/linux/3c59x/

Thanks again for your help,
CJ

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